MILLENNIAL STUDENTS AND THE FLIPPED CLASSROOM

Research suggests that millennial students have a preference for interactive and experientiallearning experiences. An increasingly popular approach to meeting the learning needs of this generation of college students is referred to as "flipping the classroom". The flipped classroom approach generally involves the preparation of short audio or video lectures, which students review before coming to class. Since students perform the information gathering portion of learning outside the classroom, professors are able to devote class-time to the application of that knowledge using active learning techniques. The purpose of this paper is to examine the flipped-classroom approach to teaching accounting to the millennial generation of students and to explore accounting-students’ attitudes towards this increasingly popular instructional approach. We conducted a survey of accounting majors at an AASCB accredited metropolitan university located in the Northeast. Students were asked questions about prior experiences and attitudes toward the flipped classroom. The results of the survey suggest that students are mostly exposed to lecture paradigm, but prefer to learn by doing than by listening. Students who have not experienced the flipped classroom also appear to be open to the idea and acknowledge the potential benefits. Finally, we also find evidence that students are exposed to a variety of teaching technologies in their accounting courses. Collectively, the results support the use of the flipped classroom approach.